Wikipedia

List of people from West Bengal

This is a list of notable people from West Bengal, India. This list does not include the significant number of prominent East Bengali refugees from East Bengal who settled in West Bengal after the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947.

Literature

Major figures

  • Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
  • Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay
  • Rajshekhar Basu
  • Shibram Chakraborty
  • Amiya Chakravarty
  • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
  • Manik Bandopadhyay
  • Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  • Pramatha Chaudhuri
  • Mahasweta Devi

Children's story writers

Medieval Bengal literary scene

Other authors from early modern period

Prominent foreign-language authors from Bengal

Other authors from early/mid-twentieth century and some contemporary authors

Journalists

Language/linguistics, anthropology, history, and other social sciences

  • Raja Ram Mohan Roy, first Bengali prose writer
  • Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, creator of Standard Bengali prose (sadhu bhasha)
  • Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, earliest educationist
  • Anil Kumar Gain, fellow of the Royal Society
  • Rajendralal Mitra, first Indian to work with Indologists
  • Haraprasad Shastri, historian of Bengali language and culture
  • Dinesh Chandra Sen, historian of Bengali literature and folklorist
  • Pramatha Chaudhuri, creator of modern Bengali prose (chalit bhasha) along with Tagore
  • Sir Jadunath Sarkar, historian
  • Rajsekhar Bose, major contributor for scientific terms in Bengali and lexicographer
  • Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, historian
  • Ramesh Chandra Dutta, historian
  • Girindrasekhar Bose, first non-European correspondent of Freud
  • Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, linguist
  • Harinath De, linguist
  • Biraja Sankar Guha, anthropologist
  • Sukumar Sen, linguist
  • Susobhan Sarkar, historian
  • Nirmal Kumar Bose, anthropologist, associate of Gandhi
  • Niharranjan Ray, historian
  • Dineshchandra Sircar, epigraphist
  • Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, social philosopher
  • Surajit Chandra Sinha, anthropologist
  • Haricharan Bandopadhayaya, lexicographer
  • Tapan Raychaudhuri, professor of history at Oxford University
  • Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize awardee in Economics
  • Ranajit Guha, subaltern theorist
  • Sumit Sarkar, historian
  • Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri, historian
  • Gayatri Spivak, feminist
  • Vina Mazumdar, women's studies academic
  • Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri, Indian historian

Scholars and polymaths

  • Radhakanta Deb, linguist
  • Aghore Nath Gupta, scholar of Buddhism
  • Asima Chatterjee, scholar of chemistry
  • Anil Kumar Gain, scholar, mathematician
  • Ramendra Sundar Tribedi, scientist
  • Amlan Datta, economist, Vice Chancellor of Visva Bharati
  • Prithwindra Mukherjee, scholar of Indian history, philosophy, religion and culture
  • Khudiram Das, Sanskrit scholar, linguist

Education

Pioneers

Post-independence

  • Sudhi Ranjan Das, Chief Justice of India, Vice-chancellor of Visva Bharati

Others

  • Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya

Teachers

  • Susobhan Sarkar, History, Presidency College
  • Katyayanidas Bhattacharya, Philosophy, Presidency College
  • K. C. Nag, Mathematics, Mitra institution

Philosophy

Pre-modern period

Modern age

Science

Religious reformation

Pre-modern period

The Brahmo Samaj

Hindu revival movement

Mid-twentieth-century religious figures

  • A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Social reformation and social work

Major figures

Derozians

Women's rights

Military

  • Subhas Chandra Bose, founder, Indian National Army
  • General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri, Indian Army Chief during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
  • Admiral Adhar Kumar Chatterji, Indian Navy Chief between 1966 and 1970.
  • Air Commodore Sudhindra Kumar Majumdar (1927–2011), India's first military helicopter pilot
  • Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, former Head of Indian Air Force
  • Chief of the Air Staff Designate Arup Raha, 24th chief of Indian Air Force.
  • Indra Lal Roy, first Indian (pre Independence) flying ace
  • General Shankar Roychowdhury, former Indian Army Chief
  • Flight Lieutenant Suhas Biswas, recipient of Ashoka Chakra
  • Captain Man Bahadur Rai, recipient of Ashoka Chakra
  • Air Vice Marshal Madhavendra Banerji, recipient of Maha Vir Chakra

Art

Early modern period

From mid-twentieth century

Film and photography

  • Dulal Dutta
  • Subrata Mitra, cinematographer
  • Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri,
  • Satyajit Roy, director, photographer, and digital artist

Music

Composers

Performers (instrumental)

  • Nikhil Banerjee, sitar
  • Sankha Chatterjee, tabla
  • Buddhadeb Dasgupta, sarod
  • Annapurna Devi, surbahar
  • Shankar Ghosh, tabla
  • Pannalal Ghosh, flute
  • Ali Akbar Khan, sarod
  • Ravi Shankar, sitar
  • Allauddin Khan, sarod and multi-instrumentalist
  • Radhika Mohan Maitra, Sarod and Mohanveena
  • Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Harmonium and tabla
  • Manilal Nag, sitar

Performers (vocal)

Classical

  • Gopeshwar Banerjee
  • Naina Devi
  • Ajoy Chakrabarty, vocal
  • Bishnupur Gharana
  • Tarapada Chakraborty
  • Kaushiki Chakraborty

Songs of Tagore and his contemporaries

Modern

Nazrul geeti

  • Indrani Sen
  • Purabi Dutta
  • Manabendra Mukhopadhyay

Movies

Directors

Actors

Actresses

See also: List of Bengali actresses

Dance

Doctors

Drama/theatre

Politicians and revolutionaries

Pre-modern

Colonial period

Indian freedom fighters

Early figures

Twentieth century

Politicians

Others

Donation and social welfare

Old Calcutta / Bengal legends

Sports

Chess

  • Dibyendu Barua, Grandmaster
  • Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Grandmaster
  • Nisha Mohota, first woman Grandmaster of West Bengal

Cricket

Football

Lawn tennis

Squash

Swimming

  • Arati Saha, first Asian woman to swim English Channel in 1959
  • Bula Choudhury, first Indian woman to swim the English Channel twice
  • Mihir Sen, first Indian to swim across the English Channel in 1958
  • Prasanta Karmakar, para swimmer, 2010 Commonwealth Games, bronze medal
  • Masudur Rahman Baidya, world's first physically handicapped swimmer to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar

Table tennis

  • Subhajit Saha, Commonwealth games gold medalist
  • Mouma Das, table tennis player
  • Poulomi Ghatak, table tennis player
  • Ankita Das, table tennis player, 2012 Summer Olympics; participant in women's singles event, 2014 Commonwealth Games; participant in women's doubles even
  • Soumyajit Ghosh, table tennis player; as of January 2013, his rank is 1st in India and 68th in Asia; 2014 Commonwealth Games, Participant in men's doubles event

Others

Industry/business

Other areas

See also

References

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